


Dream

by madaboutasoiaf



Series: 2014 Arya x Gendry Week [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AryaxGendry Week, F/M, Future Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2006574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madaboutasoiaf/pseuds/madaboutasoiaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 4 of A x G Week. Dream</p><p>Gendry thought Arya Stark to be dead but she was never forgotten. She lived on in his dreams but can dreams come true?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be first chapter of a longer fic. I just never find time to add to it. Perhaps one day...

Gendry had heard the tales coming from the south. He remembered the wolf pack in the Riverlands and the huge she-wolf which led it. Rumour had it that a girl rode with them now, a ghostly creature who left carnage in her wake for those who were enemies of the North. He tried not to think on it too much. Enough ghosts haunted him already. The grey eyed girl lost years earlier and her mother, a vengeful spirit.

 

Even with his best efforts he still thought of the girl. He dreamed of her, a dream that she still lived. In the dream she did not care that he was only a bastard blacksmith knight. In the dream she smiled at him and the differences between them ceased to exist. When he woke reality hit him hard. He focused on his smithing, trying to distract himself from what passed in that time when he formed part of the Brotherhood.

 

He had escaped, not that there was much to escape to in Westeros. Brienne of Tarth had helped him see a better path. Now he had a place with his brothers in black. It wasn’t much but it was honourable. Gendry was treated equal for the first time in his life and his skill was valued. Here he had a forge still and there was no doubting whether those who died deserved it. The dead rose and the Watch was tasked with holding the Wall.

 

Life at the Wall was hard but in a way it was simple too. It was terrifying, he never forgot that but each day had a clear purpose. Gendry had tasks and he did them. The Lord Commander gave the orders, Gendry carried them out. He had a job to do and he focused on that and that alone. It all changed the day the army marched on Castle Black.

 

It was not a large army. Only part of Queen Daenerys’ forces had arrived. The Queen herself had been delayed with fighting in the south. The dragons were coming. It worried him more than he could say even as the Lord Commander seemed oddly calm about it all. The army was not what truly distracted Gendry though, it was the arrival of the Lord Commander’s sister.

 

When he first heard the commotion about her arrival he kept busy. Gendry had heard about Sansa Stark. He did not know how she came to be at the Wall but he did not wish to intrude on the Lord Commander’s reunion with her. Lord Snow treated Gendry warmly, he welcomed him into his company almost as much as Maester Sam but Gendry was always careful not to wear out that welcome.

 

He busied himself in the forge. His brothers came and went, gossiping about the Stark girl. They paid no mind to his feigned disinterest. He was finally alone and focusing on repairing a damaged shield when he sensed movement out of the corner of his eye. The intruder had made no sound. He froze on the spot and stared.

 

“Gendry,” she said quietly, her face completely impassive.

 

She was sitting on the bench only a few feet from him. He almost dropped his hammer in his shock. It had been years but he knew her instantly. He had imagined what she might look like if she had lived but imagining did not match reality. She had grown her hair and she was now long limbed, still slight and he would still tower over her but she had likely reached her full height. She still dressed in men’s clothes but she was not a little girl any more. Her features had sharpened and her grey eyes, so like the Lord Commander’s were the colour he remembered but they were changed somehow.

 

“Arya,” he choked out then remembered who she was and who he was. _She is a princess you stupid bastard._ He cast his eyes down. “M’Lady”.

 

Her previously expressionless features changed instantly and she was the same as he remembered but different at the same time as she flushed with anger. She dropped down from the bench onto her feet and stalked, almost catlike towards him.

 

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed.

 

He had to fight the urge to smile. “I thought you were dead,” he blurted.

 

The anger seemed to drain from her as quickly as it had come. “Arya did die for a while.”

 

“We looked for you,” he said desperately. “Why didn’t you come back?”

 

Her response cut through him. “You left me,” she said simply. “All the Brotherhood wanted was gold. I was not going to be anybody else’s ransom.”

 

Gendry’s mouth opened and shut but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. She stood completely still, looking at him but almost as though she saw into him.

 

“Your mother-“ he finally began to say.

 

“She’s dead,” Arya replied.

 

Gendry struggled with what to say next. “Lady Stoneheart-“

 

“Also dead,” Arya said flatly.

 

He wanted to question her then saw that she was almost agitated. It was hard to tell given that her face betrayed nothing but her fingers were fluttering and she seemed to be fighting with herself.

 

“Jon doesn’t understand,” she muttered. “Nobody does.”

 

“I was there,” Gendry said flatly. “I know what she was at the end.”

 

Arya looked at him with some sort of emotion fighting to get through. “So you would know what had to be done.”

 

Gendry met her gaze trying to determine if she was saying what he thought she was saying. He saw her hand touch the hilt of the blade at her hip, almost like a compulsion and made a guess.

 

“I’ve had to kill too now you know,” he confessed.

 

Arya’s response was a sad smile that almost took his breath away. “Not like me you haven’t.”

 

She was like his dream come true but at the same time she wasn’t. Arya stood before him and she lived. She smiled at him the way she had before, back when they were children, back before winter came for all of them. She smiled at him in the way he dreamed of, as though the differences did not matter.

 

“Are you staying?” he asked, trying to appear as though her answer did not matter.

 

She nodded and moved gracefully to sit on the bench again, so close to him this time that they were almost touching. Her expression began to look extremely amused. She smirked at him.

 

“What is it?” he asked.

 

Arya cocked her head to the side a little.

 

“I did say you could smith for my brother,” she said and the corners of her mouth quirked.

 

The irony was not lost on him. “You did,” he replied. “It seems you were right.”

 

Her smile faded and Gendry let the silence linger. _She must think of the brother who died._ He returned to working on the shield. She stayed with him, watching him work and it felt so familiar. He might have changed. She had changed too but some things stayed the same. She eventually dropped down from the bench and began to move away as quietly as she entered. He thought her to be gone but when he looked around she lingered.

 

“I am glad you are here Gendry,” she said quietly.

 

He studied her trying to determine what it meant.

 

“I am glad you are here too,” he blurted.

 

Her smile became even brighter and Gendry knew he went a little red. He behaved like a fool but the shock of seeing her after all this time after thinking she was dead had broken through the walls he built around himself. She stood just looking at him for a moment before mumbling about needing to see Jon. Gendry watched her leave.

 

His dreams might only have been dreams but seeing her caused him hope and pain. The dream had come true, she lived and part of him thought she looked at him just the way he hoped she might. The other part of him told him he was wrong. The differences between them remained, no matter that she lived or that she did not seem to see them.

 

_Some things are only meant to be dreams.... or are they?_

  
Arya lived and that gave Gendry hope.

 


End file.
